Up near the northern fence line, we came across some of the oldest clusters of graves with a large number of limestone grave stones. We were very interested. We also saw some iconography we had never seen before, of a spirit floating over an opened gate, surely representing a soul passing through the gates of…
Tag: Cemeteries
Mausolea and Tumuli, Bellefontaine Cemetery, Late December 2025
The Busch Mausoleum was looking beautiful with a cloudless sky framing it as we looked at some mausolea. The Farrar “mausoleum” actually holds a crypt below the floor of the colonnade. If you move the stone back, it slides on these tracks. Very nice. This is one of the oldest large-scale monuments in the cemetery….
Obelisks, Bellefontaine Cemetery, Late December 2025
Let’s look at some obelisks, which go all the way back to Egyptian architecture and religion. You can read about their religious significance in ancient Egypt here. The Romans were famous for stealing Egyptian obelisks and setting them up in temples in Rome, particularly at the Iseum in the Campus Martius. This obelisk group of…
Monuments and Sculpture, Bellefontaine Cemetery, Late December 2025
What better way to celebrate the unseasonably warm weather the day after Christmas than to head to Bellefontaine Cemetery? So today and the three following days, we’ll look at four different themes of various sights we saw as we walked the grounds away from the roads. We saw old favorites and many new ones. Take…
Trinity Lutheran Church, Town and Country
Sometimes ironically called the “cash register church,” Trinity Lutheran Church, Chesterfield at the intersection of Clayton Road and Missouri Highway 141 is actually a historically rich and interesting congregation. It’s actually within the boundaries of the suburb of Town and Country but identifies with Chesterfield, further to the west. This Trinity is in the Evangelical…
Roth Cemetery, Weldon Spring
At the end of a cul-de-sac on Perceval Drive in the Camelot subdivision in Weldon Spring, the small Roth Cemetery is a unique burial ground in that it was incorporated into a roundabout. There are four burials, that of Peter and presumably his daughters Ida and Emma Roth, who all lived in the Nineteenth Century….
Othaniel Castlio Cemetery, Busch Wildlife Conservation Area
Deep inside the August A. Busch Conservation Area, walking across the earthen dam that created Lake 37, we were on the hunt for a family cemetery that was left behind when the land was confiscated for the production of munitions for World War II. This was farmland, of course, that had been settled far back…
St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery, Cottleville
Where Route N, the old Boone’s Lick Road make a right turn, going from west to north, is St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery in Cottleville. The church was founded in 1866, and sat at the intersection for over a hundred years until it moved to a new location in 1980. The site of…
Public Lot, Calvary Cemetery
I thought I had photographed these monuments before, but it seems that I have never featured them before. The monument above commemorates two members of the Nimíipuu people who died in St. Louis in 1831. More commonly known by their French name, the Nez Perce, which means “pierced nose,” the delegation was one their east…
Jefferson City National Cemetery
Jefferson City has a small national veterans cemetery located south of the Capitol. The first burial was as early as 1861, and they continue to the present day. The gates were built for horse drawn carriages and I almost thought I wasn’t going to be able to fit my automobile out the exit. It was…